2 thoughts on “Josef Stalin, bank robber”

Stalin was also a man who understood the power of ideas, saying on one occasion, “Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas?” And on another, “Print is the sharpest and strongest weapon of our party.”

Beria used to hand Stalin a list of hundreds of dissidents, saying, “These are enemies of the Soviet,” and Stalin would sign their death warrants without reading the list. It is not without reason that Bolshevism was denounced as an “Asiatic philosophy,” life being quite cheap thereabouts. Stalin’s own background is murky : he was educated at a church school but his family name is literally, “son of a Jew.” Moreover, his three wives were Jewesses. When his son Jacob was captured by the Wehrmacht, Stalin did next to nothing to rescue him (via prisoner exchange). Virtually all the Soviet leaders were Russian Jews, which gave credence to Nazi claims that Communism was a “Jewish philosophy.” Which may seem biased or non-idealogical, but National Socialism was also “racist”, and a common bond of blood/religion makes for a healthy Commissariat.